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The Caribbean Climate Online Risk and Adaptation tooL or CCORAL, launched last month by the Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre (CCCCC), will be used to integrate climate change considerations into decision making across the region. The tool was referred to recently in the Jamaican parliament, with the Minister for Water, Land, Environment and Climate Change, Robert Pickersgill, saying that the tool will be used “to assess the risk of community and national projects against specific climate change scenarios”.

Importantly, the Minister went on to state that “before the end of the year, we will be commencing with the training of all Ministers and Heads of Agencies in using [CCORAL]”. The Jamaican parliaments intention to ensure that key decision makers are trained in the use of CCORAL, is a promising signal that the tool will become an important tool in increasing the climate resilience of Jamaica and other nations in the Caribbean region.

The CCORAL tool will be an important addition to the Jamaican government’s arsenal for fighting climate change. The nation is facing some considerable challenges to adapt to climate impacts such as sea level rise which has seen some parts of the island submerged, threatening the livelihoods of coastal communities.

Speaking to IPS news recently, Conrad Douglas, a Jamaican environmental scientist said that “People speak about the likelihood of Barbuda disappearing in 40 years, but this is a reality in Jamaica at the present time”.

Douglas said that sea level rise is affecting people’s livelihoods, incomes and lifestyles, “exposing us to all sort of other problems that could threaten the security of the country and of the region”.

CCORAL is a web-based tool designed to help decision makers in the Caribbean integrate climate resilience into their decision making and planning processes.

Dr Rajendra Pachauri, Chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), said of CCORAL “The development of the… tool [is] an extremely important asset in assessing the risk from the impacts of climate change in the Caribbean region. I would like to compliment the CCCCC for having taken this initiative”.